European Structural and Investment Funds

Survey results from June 2018 lead partner event

On 19 June 2018 we held a lead partner event – in case you missed it or would like a reminder of what was discussed, the slides and Q&A transcript are available.

After the event we sent out a survey to get your views on how it went. The feedback was valuable and we’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the survey.

We especially appreciate your honesty – in a few cases it was mentioned that it feels like Lead Partners are being “talked to”. We will definitely reflect on your comments, and try to improve this for future Lead Partner events to make sure we all get the most out of them.

Follow-up questions

There were a few good questions that survey respondents asked – we thought it would be useful to answer them here for everyone’s benefit:

Has the data protection statement on the participant’s publicity consent form been updated to reflect GDPR?

Can you give us more information about what would be checked at the audit visits?

Yes, the audit and compliance documents (Articles 125, carried out by the Managing Authority, and 127, carried out by the Audit Authority) are now available on our website.

How will the staff interviews during the Article 125 Stage 2 (b) visits work?

Staff interviews are part of the Managing Authority anti-fraud strategy and staff members will be picked at random from salaries included in the claim records. The MA will interview no more than 4 members of staff and interviews are expected to take no more than 15 minutes per person.

Lead partners will be advised of staff selected at notification of a visit, and partners should advise the MA at this point if the staff member no longer work on the operation. The MA are assessing the staff members’ understanding of the objectives of the project, awareness of funds and an outline of duties.

It is imperative that the staff selected are available on the day. Interviews cannot take place over the phone and must be undertaken face to face unless in a rural location where the use of videoconferencing or skype video call is acceptable.

Where a member of staff has left the operation or organisation, the Lead Partner will be required provide evidence of their leaving date from payroll to verify this.

Future event topics – get involved!

Respondents’ comments in the survey suggested that popular topics for future events could be:

Examples of Programme Management from other Lead Partners

Examples of Programme Delivery from other Lead Partners

Horizontal Themes

Outcomes of Audit Visits

We’ll make a note of these popular topics for our next Lead Partner event. If you feel strongly about any of the above topics and would like to present about one or more of them, please contact us at europeanstructuralfunds@gov.scot

We would like to hear from new voices and are looking to include presentations from lead partners at our next event, so if you’re interested please get in touch!

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What is this blog about?

The European Structural and Investment Funds blog provides an insight into how European funding positively impacts the community, through European Social Funding, and strengthens economic and social cohesion through European Regional Development Funding.